No laptop. No powerpoint slides. No laser pointer. Just him and a few aspiring scientists. Some modest advice for graduate students on turning scientific data into publishable material. Bountiful jokes.

This is what a talk by Jiri Friml in March 2011 at the National University of Singapore was all about.

In his book The First Three Minutes, particle physicist and Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg wrote, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. ... The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts a human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."

Physicists are often confronted by the apparent meaninglessness of the universe, or at least the lack of any meaning that can be discerned by science. In this context, Weinberg argued that science itself gave meaning to one's life. In an interview with PBS, Weinberg would add, "There is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art."

Constructed in 1537 by King Kempe Gowda, Hebbal Lake has seen a multitude of uses since then: as a reservoir for drinking water, a source of livelihood for local fisher-folk, a haven for many species of birds, even a welcome sight for the sore eyes of the NCBS shuttle commuter, with its expanse of water, pelicans and painted storks.

Sadly, however, other uses have also been found. Drains from neighboring localities flow into the lake. Sewage almost always acts as a fertiliser for a water body due to an influx of nutrients; and Hebbal Lake has been no exception. One of the many consequences: a lush green mat of water hyacinth cloaking the surface of the lake.

The moon above at a lofty height..

I see the clouds sprinkling tiny flakes..

In the misty, foggy site..

On the glassy water, I see a projection..

My reflection!

In my previous post I tried to allay some possible concerns about "writing to recipes", and one of my main points was that sticking to a schema can lead to clearer writing. In this post I want to tackle another "fear of the formula", one that seems the most paradoxical of all: an aversion to the very clarity that we were previously (and naively?) assuming to be a desirable feature of science reporting.